Civil Society Fears Clamp-down on Protests

By Farah Khan

Civil society groups are alarmed at the way the South African government is using apartheid-era legislation and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to try and curtail demonstrations during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

The South African government is taking an increasingly hard line on protests, arguing that it has information that international anti-globalisation activists intend to hijack certain demonstrations, planned for next week, to try and disrupt the summit.

Police have been active in the past week, arresting demonstrators on Saturday night and firing tear-gas and buck-shot on a crowd which included Canadian author Naomi Klein and the Indian bio-piracy opponent Vandana Shiva. The police say the march was illegal and the demonstrators threatened property along the route.

Last week, 72 activists demonstrating for land reform in South Africa were arrested. Their American media adviser Ann Eveleth faces deportation, after living in South Africa for 10 years. Eveleth’s work permit had expired, but she says she had applied to get it renewed.
Police have been using the Regulation of Gatherings Act, promulgated in 1993, to crackdown on demonstrations during the WSSD.

Three mass marches are planned for Saturday. The Global Forum, the Social Movements Indaba and the Landless Assembly all plan to march on Sandton. Government and the groups are still negotiating about their applications to march and the route of the demonstration.

The Regulation of Gatherings Act states that any meeting or event involving more than fifteen people, could be declared illegal if they have not received permission to do so.

"The FXI has long argued that the Regulation of Gatherings Act, is an apartheid relic that gives the police power to repress gatherings, rather than facilitating their (protesters) rights to demonstration, assembly and picket," says Jane Duncan, executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI).

Abie Ditlhake, executive director of the SA National NGO Coalition says: "We believe that the basic principles of a free society (such as the right of assembly and the right to demonstrate) are being infringed".

"This act (Regulation of Gatherings Act) has no place on the statutes of a modern democracy," says Raymond Louw, a spokesperson for the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).
MISA has approached the government to scrap a number of apartheid legislation still on the statutes books. The Regulation of Gatherings Act and the Key Points Act, under which Greenpeace activists were arrested in Cape Town after scaling walls at Koeberg Nuclear Power station are included in the list.

Jody Kollapen, Human Rights Commissioner, says he met this week with the Gauteng commissioner of police, to express the Human Rights Commission's unhappiness with the way in which the police has dealt with protest marches.

"The right of assembly is an integral part of the SA constitution. The fact that there some people who are coming to the summit with the sole purpose of disrupting proceedings does not give the authorities the right to turn down all marches," says Kollapen.